Backlit Text

Finished project

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  Create a new image.

Make a new image 500 pixels by 300 pixels, black background and 24 bit.

  
Vector text after hiding layers Make vector text.

Set your background swatch color to white and foreground to null. Click on the Text tool text tool. Choose Create as Vector from the drop down and anti-alias checked. Here, I've used Verdana at 36 point bolded. Click on the image and type in your text. Objects->Align->Center in Canvas. Selections->From Vector Object. Selections->Load/Save Selection->Save Selection to Alpha Channel. You can just accept the default name. Selections->Select None. Right click on the vector layer and choose Duplicate. Expand the duplicate layer to show the vector sub-layer. Double click on this to bring up the text dialog. Highlight the text if it isn't all ready highlighted and change the background swatch color to black. Duplicate this duplicate layer. In the layer control palette, disable the visibility of these two top layers by clicking on the eyeball for each layer. Your layer stack from the bottom should be solid black, white text, black text, black text.

 See a screen capture of this step.
First pass with Wind Now for the coolness.

Right click on the first vector layer (white text) and choose Merge Down. Effects->Distortion Effects->Polar Coordinates. Choose Polar to Rectangle. Image->Rotate->Rotate Clockwise 90. Effects->Distortion Effects->Wind. Choose From Right and 100%. Adjust->Sharpness->Sharpen More. Repeat the Wind and Sharpen one more time.

  
Coolness completed Continuing coolness.

Effects->Distortion Effects->Wind. This time change the Wind Direction to From Left. Adjust->Sharpness->Sharpen More. Apply the Wind and Sharpen again. Fire up the Wind filter one more time and change it back to From Right. Sharpen More again. Image->Rotate->Rotate Counterclockwise 90. Effects->Distortion Effects->Polar Coordinates, change it to Rectangular to Polar and set the Edge Mode to Repeat. Adjust->Blur->Gaussian Blur, set the radius to 2. Adjust->Sharpness->Sharpen More. Repeat the Sharpen.

  
Completed highlight Make a highlight in the center.

Turn the visibility back on for the next layer up, the first black text vector layer, so that you can see where to place the highlight. You still want the bottom/background layer to be the active layer. Set your background color swatch to white and the foreground to null. Click on the Preset Shape tool Preset Shape tool. From the Shape List drop down choose the Elipse shape. Retain Style unchecked, Vector and Anti-Alias checked. Using the right mouse button, drag out an elipse in the center of the image, it's going to create a new vector layer, this is okay. Objects->Align->Center in Canvas. Right click on this new layer and choose Convert to Raster Layer. Adjust->Blur->Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 5. Drag the opacity slider on this layer down to about 65%. Right click on the layer and choose Merge Down.

 See a screen capture of this step.
Adding some glow Add some glow to the text.

Still on the bottom layer, Selections->Load/Save Selection->Load Selection from Alpha Channel, hit the Load button. Effects->3D Effects->Drop Shadow. Set both offsets to 2, Opacity to 40 and Blur to 11, set the color to white. Run the Drop Shadow filter again, this time set the offsets to -2 (that's negative 2). Selections->Select None.

  
Deforming the shadow Making a cast perspective shadow.

Unhide the top layer and click on it to make it the active layer. Click on the Object Selector tool Object Selector tool. Image->Flip. Click on the vector sub-layer to select the flipped text. Drag the text object down until the flipped text is bottom to bottom with the regular text. Control drag on the bottom right node to deform the text to look like a cast shadow. Optional: If you want a softer cast shadow, right click on this layer and Convert to Raster Layer. Adjust->Blur->Gaussian Blur, set the radius to 1.5.

  
Finished project Colorize the coolness.

Right click on the bottom layer and choose New Adjustment Layer->Hue/Sat/Light. Check the Colorize box. Drag the Saturation slider up to about 50%. Drag the Hue slider until you find a color you like. You can continue to fool around with the sliders in the dialog until you get a color you like. Here I used Hue of 291 and Saturation of 23. If you save this as a .pspimage file, you can go back into the Adjustment Layer by double clicking on it so that you can change the color again.